Erebus. Michael Palin
ran aground in low water and had to be towed the next morning to Margate by the steamship Hecate. Here they remained waiting for the westerly winds to abate, and for one of the anchors to be replaced – Ross fulminating, justifiably, but hardly succinctly, against ‘the gross negligence of those whose duty it was to ascertain the soundness of that, on which, under different circumstances, the ship, and lives of all on board, might have . . . depended’. It was not an auspicious start.
For the people of Margate, the presence of this great expedition so fortuitously becalmed on their doorstep was quite an attraction. They came out in numbers to gaze at the ships, and some were invited aboard. No one can have been more warmly welcomed than the naval pay clerks who arrived on the 25th to issue three months’ pay in advance. The rest of the crew’s wages were to be passed directly to their families until their safe return.
On the last day of September 1839 the wind swung round to the east and they could at last head down into the English Channel, dropping their pilot at Deal and continuing south-west, in what McCormick described as ‘boisterous weather’. It would be almost four years to the day before any of them saw the English coast again.
Sailors who had never previously crossed the Equator were traditionally subjected to a line-crossing ceremony. William Cunningham, aboard Terror, vividly described his own experience on 3 December 1839: ‘I was sat down on the Barber’s chair, and underwent the process of shaving by being lathered with a paint brush – and lather composed of all manner of Nuisance that could be collected in a Ship.’
CHAPTER 4
FAR-OFF SHORES
Erebus was never a graceful ship. Functionally barque-rigged, with square sails on the fore and mainmast and a fore and aft sail on the mizzen, she was not quick, either. With a full wind in her sails, seven to nine knots was about the maximum. But in the expert opinion of her captain’s great-grandson, Rear-Admiral M.J. Ross, she was ‘an excellent seaboat’, which ‘rolled and pitched a great deal, but easily, so that there was little strain on [the] rigging or spars’.
She was soon put to the test. Four days into the journey, while passing close to Start Point, the southern tip of Devon, on 4 October 1839, she ran into thick fog, followed by a gale and heavy rain. The next morning Terror was nowhere to be seen. Less than a week at sea and already the Admiralty’s clear instruction that both ships stay together at all times had fallen foul of reality. This didn’t seem to worry Ross unduly. As Lizard Point, the last sight of the coast of England, disappeared astern, he was in high spirits. ‘It is not easy to describe the joy and light-heartedness we all felt,’ he wrote later, ‘. . . bounding before a favourable breeze over the blue waves of the ocean, fairly embarked in the enterprise we had all so long desired to commence, and freed from the anxious and tedious operations of our protracted but requisite preparation.’
James Clark Ross was a serious and experienced mariner, cautious with emotion. He’d been through all this many times before, but nowhere else does he reveal quite as intensely his great relief at being on the move, away from pettifogging civil servants and pompous ceremonies, with sixty men around him and a job to do. He was heading south for the first time – and a long way south: if all worked out, further south than any other ship had been before. The challenge that lay ahead was formidable, but one that he relished. As he swung Erebus south-south-west, he was indeed master of all he surveyed.
Life on board ship settled into a time-honoured pattern. The day was divided into four-hour watches marked by the ringing of the ship’s bell. Eight bells would be rung at midday, followed by one bell at half-past, two bells at one o’clock, three bells at half-past one, and so on, until eight bells were reached again at four o’clock, when the whole process would begin again. The crew would work four hours on and four hours off, through day and night. The boatswain would stand at the hatches, calling ‘All Hands!’ as the watches changed, and the men would muster on deck before going off to their various stations.
The days began early. Shortly after four in the morning the cook would light the fires in the galley and start to prepare an early pre-breakfast. This would have been some kind of porridge, which would have been downed with ship’s biscuit. The five o’clock watch washed the decks and polished the planks with holystone, whilst others followed up with brooms and buckets, swabbing the decks.
By seven-thirty all hammocks would be stowed, and at eight bells the captain would inspect the work and, if that was approved, the boatswain would pipe for breakfast. (The boatswain’s whistle was a vital part of life on board: it served as the equivalent of a modern PA system, with different cadences conveying different orders.) The main meal would be taken at midday and generally comprised something like hardtack biscuit, salt beef, cheese and soup. A grog ration – a quarter-pint of rum and water for each man – was served with it. At that time, too, if the skies were clear, and with the sun at its highest point above the horizon, measurements would be taken to determine the ship’s latitude. Various other tasks filled the rest of the day, including the checking of stores and equipment, sail-handling and the washing of clothes. In the evening more grog would be served, the fiddles would come out and songs would be sung and jigs danced.
The accommodation on the ship was segregated according to rank, with captain’s, officers’ and warrant officers’ cabins towards the stern, and other ranks further forward. The captain’s cabin ran the entire width of the ship. At the stern end he would have had five lights – or windows – to look out of, each about 3 feet high with quarter-panes doubled up – one frame on the inside, one on the outside. Fanning out from his quarters were the cabins for individual officers: on the starboard side, next to the captain’s bed cabin, was one each for the surgeon and the purser, both about 6 feet by 5 feet 5 inches, with a washbasin in one corner, a table in another and a bed-place with drawers underneath; on the port side were four similar cabins, three occupied by the lieutenants and one by the master. Next to them, running forward, were four single but smaller cabins, accommodating the captain’s steward, the steward’s pantry, the First Mate and the Second Master. They would have had little more than a seat, a cupboard, a scrap of a table and narrow bed-places. Further forward on the starboard side were small individual cabins for the purser’s steward, the gun-room steward and the assistant surgeon (both with bed-places but no washbasins). Next to them, the master gunner, boatswain and carpenter shared a mess room and adjoining communal sleeping quarters, with two bunks and a single bed-space.
Between the rows of cabins was the wardroom, where the officers dined together, served by their own stewards and sometimes joined by the captain. The officers contributed to mess rations out of their own pockets, which ensured that their menu was more varied than that doled out to the rest of the crew. The better-off would have had their own wine and other delicacies. The purser and mates ate separately in their own mess room, also known as the gun-room. A ladderway and main hatch were situated amidships, and beyond them, in the forward third of the ship, was the forecastle, an open area where petty officers, Marines and sailors ate and slept. All except the officers and warrant officers slept in hammocks.
The men would have eaten at tables of four, squeezed either side of the long Sail Bin, where spare sails were stored. They would have used their own seaman’s chests both for seating and for storage of their gear.
Beyond the forecastle was the galley and finally, in the bows, the Sick Room. From the plans of the ship, it seems there were only two water-closets with cisterns. These were located at the stern, flanked by two hen coops, and next to the Colour Boxes, where all the various signal flags were kept in neat compartments. There must have been other toilets, but only the captain’s and officers’ privy is marked.
All in all, there was little room on board and, if you weren’t an officer, almost no privacy at all, but this would have been true of any ship, and indeed of many of the homes that the men came from and which they shared with their often-large families. The key to life at sea was regular activity, scrupulous cleanliness, respect for orders and for the